Power gating is a technique for reducing power consumption in electronic circuits, including integrated circuits (ICs). The technique involves separating components, or subcircuits, of a circuit into various domains and temporarily turning off power to some or all domains when the components in those domains are idling. A component is idling when it does not have to function. Power gating is a function that enables conservation of power during operation of an IC in a device.
Tracing is a technique in which events occurring during operation of a circuit are recorded and stored. The events may be recorded at least temporarily in a trace capture buffer or some other type of storage device. If a circuit fault occurs, such stored events may be useful for diagnosing and remedying the fault. Tracing is particularly useful in debugging newly designed ICs.